quantitative aggravation
Keynes was right .
... and he was an optimist when it comes to politicians' willingness
to pay back debt ...
This essay
is intended to be a playful way to describe the positive impact of a directorial executive .
We start with the basic rules of the board game Monopoly . Imagine additionally
the bank of the game as a fusion of a government with the banking industry .
The American Dream
In America's Monopoly , the bank is the vault for the cash .
If you're out of money , you've lost .
The game stops when only one player is left .
The European Welfare State
In Europe's Monopoly , the bank is also the welfare state .
If you're out of money , you can submit a request to the bank for more free money .
The game goes on , the rich get richer , the poor stay poor , until the bank is broke .
The Welfare Dream
If too many players risk to go broke , the bank hands out money to everyone .
The rich receive as well and more than the poor players .
The game goes on - until it collapses and one player is left with all the money from the game .
The Helvetic Monopoly
The bank is directed by a council .
If you're out of money , you either deserve to be kicked out of the game ,
or you might have been just rather unlucky and deserve a second chance .
Over-the-thumb rule : free money - but not enough for a round - plus a loan from the rich .
If you're then lucky , you can start a living again and pay back the loan .
If you're less lucky , unlike the bank the rich can show solidarity
and cancel part or all of your debt .
The game goes on - until everybody is bored ...
In Monopoly ,
The rich need the cash flow of the poor to win .
The poor need a backup to protect from misfortune .
The bank needs the rich's solidarity in tough times .
In theory ,
the survivability of the Helvetic Monopoly ,
is that the incentives in the council
enable it to poker out the rich's solidarity in good times .
Something that seems in the other variations only difficultly possible
or at least only too irregularly happening .
The actors strife also for individual prosperity ,
the difference is that the bank is in the hands of each layer of players .
And with three members at least , there will always be a middle-actor
who's future lies in either the richer or the poorer layer ,
depending mostly on luck or misfortune .
The middle-actor has therefore a marginally bigger incentive to work out a compromise .
Once a compromise is on the table ,
the other two layers have a marginally bigger incentive to vote for that compromise ,
especially in good times,
where it doesn't cost the rich ,
and nevertheless reassures the poor.
A dynamic and fair set of rules can emerge ,
punishing rather individual recklessness than misfortune
and protecting rather from the latter than the first ,
all while rewarding innovation and the benefits of assiduity ,
rather than pure luck .
In reality ,
the priority for government is not social justice or individual freedom ,
it's the protection of property , rights and obligations ,
the guarantee of the rule of law and of legal justice .
Welfare , education , healthcare , science , infrastructure , utilities and all the other markets
are only the forums where the executive can balance
- through regulations -
the social justice
by cutting or adding
certain individual freedoms .
The difference
with the division of the directorial executive
is the creation of an incentive for the centrist
to poker out compromises for the middle-class .
The result
of a constitution that such favors the moderate is a fair and dynamic society
where the hope of solving the interest conflicts at the table defuses the fear
of having them ignored by the rich respectively ignited by the poor .
...
...
...
february 2o12
